Can Pashinyan Do for Armenia a Fraction Of What Erdogan Has Done for Turkey? — By Harut Sassounian

I just read an in-depth investigation published by the ‘Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project’ (OCCRP) titled, “Behind Trump’s Turkish ‘Bromance’: Oligarchs, Crooks, and a Multi-Million-Dollar Lobbying Deal.” The authors are Aubrey Belford and Adam Klasfeld.

The first paragraph summarizes the findings: “Turkey’s president has enjoyed an unusually powerful sway over the Trump administration. A new investigation reveals the relationship was built by a circle that included Trump’s favorite lobbyist, a key character in the Ukraine impeachment scandal, a Kremlin-linked oligarch, and a shipping tycoon charged with terrorism.”

The article discloses the private lunch held at Washington’s Watergate Hotel on January 19, 2017, the day before Trump’s inauguration. It was attended by four key individuals: Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu; Brian Ballard, a lobbyist and vice chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee; Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian-born major donor to pro-Trump causes who set up the meeting, along with Mubariz Mansimov, a Turkish-Azerbaijani shipping magnate, who according to Parnas, donated a $25-million oil tanker to the Turkish president’s family and allowed Erdogan to use his private plane. He is now on trial in Turkey, accused of terrorism.

On the meeting’s agenda was “two multi-million-dollar contracts to lobby for Turkey and its Islamist leader, Erdogan, in the U.S.,” according to OCCRP.

Most of the middlemen between Erdogan and Trump are businessmen and oligarchs tied to former Soviet Republics — “and almost all of them are now either in jail or facing serious criminal charges…. The lobbying contracts with Ballard were established with the help of both Parnas and the shipping tycoon Mansimov, as well as Farkhad Akhmedov, who is listed by the U.S. Treasury as a Russian oligarch closely tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin…. The contracts eventually included a $125,000-per-month deal for Ballard’s firm to represent Halkbank, a Turkish state bank being prosecuted in the U.S. for fraud, money laundering and sanctions-busting, public records show. Trump has reportedly tried to quash the Halkbank case,” OCCRP reported.

The Ballard contracts were preceded by “widely reported efforts in which Turkish businessmen and ministers illegally hired Trump’s former national security advisor, retired Gen. Mike Flynn, as a lobbyist, and discussed a $10 million influence campaign with another Trump adviser.”

In a strange twist, OCCRP reported that Mansimov and another businessman were partners with an Armenian-American convicted in the U.S. of a $511-million fraud scheme. An IRS agent “alleged in court that the fraudsters were directly linked to Erdogan and had bought the protection of Turkey’s government.”

Parnas said he was introduced to Mansimov by Belarusian-born Igor Furman “who had worked with Giuliani on his Ukraine dirt-digging missions.” Parnas said he got two free tickets from Ballard to attend Trump’s inauguration balls with Mansimov. Ballard Partners denied the claim.

Two days after Trump’s inauguration, Akhmedov, an Azeri oligarch, arrived in Miami with his 385-foot yacht, the Luna, the world’s second-largest. “Akhmedov has publicly claimed to have helped resolve international disputes between Turkey and Russia at least twice. In a 2016 interview with Russian state media outlet Sputnik, Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu described Akhmedov as a valuable diplomatic go-between….” OCCRP reported. He also mediated between the U.S. and Turkey.

On May 11, 2017, “Ballard Partners signed its first Turkey-related lobbying contract, with the country’s government…. The second contract, with Halkbank was signed in August. Combined, the two contracts brought in more than $4 million. (Ballard terminated the contract with the Turkish government on November 15, 2018, a few days after the Trump administration gave sanctions relief, letting Erdogan’s regime purchase oil from Iran. The firm’s Halkbank contract was terminated in October 2019, after the bank was indicted by U.S. federal prosecutors),” OCCRP reported. “Text messages also show that Akhmedov played a role in discussions over a later Ballard Partners contract, signed in April 2018, to lobby on behalf of Azerbaijan’s authoritarian government for $50,000 per month. Ballard Partners denies this claim.”

“In early 2017, it had been revealed that Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn — who was forced to resign on February 13 that year over undeclared contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. — had been secretly hired as an undeclared foreign agent by Erdogan’s government. American federal prosecutors have since indicted a Turkish-Dutch businessman, Ekim Alptekin, over his alleged role in the scheme, which involved funneling over $500,000 in Turkish government money to Flynn’s consultancy. Prosecutors allege the scheme was directed by two Turkish ministers. Lobbying documents show they were Foreign Minister Cavusoglu and Erdogan’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, who at the time was energy minister. As part of that effort, Flynn and those same Turkish figures also discussed kidnapping Erdogan’s cleric rival, [Fethullah] Gulen, from his home in Pennsylvania and ‘whisking’ him to Turkey to face charges, former C.I.A. Director Michael Woolsey, who was at the September 2016 meeting, told the Wall Street Journal. Flynn has denied the report,” according to OCCRP.

“In a meeting on September 20, 2016, Woolsey, then also a Trump campaign adviser, said he met Alptekin and his close associate, Sezgin Baran Korkmaz, to unsuccessfully pitch his own $10-million plan to help Turkey by discrediting Gulen. Korkmaz faces allegations that he played a key role in a half-billion-dollar fraud scheme orchestrated by Lev Aslan Dermen, an Armenian-American organized-crime figure. Dermen was convicted earlier this year, and was alleged in court proceedings to be personally linked with Erdogan. Also closely tied to the two men was Mansimov…. At the time they were involved in brokering U.S.-Turkey relations, both Mansimov and Korkmaz were also partners in business with the Armenian-American organized crime figure. Dermen, who also goes by the name Levon Termendzhyan, was convicted in March over a complex fraud carried out with members of The Order, a secretive Mormon polygamist sect, to defraud the U.S. government by claiming over $500 million in fake renewable-fuel tax credits. Based in Los Angeles, Dermen owned a fleet of luxury cars, traveled with bodyguards, and used bribery to recruit moles in the police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and, allegedly, the F.B.I. Korkmaz, the Turkish businessman, allegedly helped the group move over $130 million to Turkey, where both he and Dermen had cultivated links with Erdogan, I.R.S. agent Tyler Hatcher testified during a pre-trial hearing. Dermen and Korkmaz ‘have used their wealth to ensure that their money would be a safe haven in Turkey as well as protect them against extradition,’ Hatcher said,” according to OCCRP.

“Daniel McDyre, a former subordinate of Dermen who has since turned state’s witness, told reporters that the company was an aborted joint venture between Mansimov and Dermen to pursue a crude-oil shipping deal with the Turkish government…. Dermen is now facing up to 30 years in prison,” OCCRP reported.

As a result of the Erdogan-Trump connection, the “Trump administration has often been strikingly receptive to the interests of Erdogan’s authoritarian government.” Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, wrote in his memoir that “the U.S. president seemed, despite a rocky bilateral relationship, to regard the Turkish leader as one of his ‘best international buddies,’” OCCRP reported.

“Records filed under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act show that Turkey’s government and related agencies spent more than $7.3 million on five U.S. lobbying firms in 2018 alone. Apart from Ballard, one major beneficiary has been Mercury Public Affairs, another outfit that enjoys close links to the [Trump] administration,” OCCRP reported. Mercury was hired earlier this year by the Armenian Government for $600,000 a year.

Another close contact with Trump is Turkish businessman Mehmet Ali Yalcindag, the president of Turkish-US Business Council, “a semi-official Turkish entity.” He is now “under indictment for his alleged role in secretly recruiting Flynn,” according to OCCRP. Yalcındag “partnered with the U.S. president in the Trump Towers Istanbul project…. Yalcındag reportedly enjoys a close relationship with the Trump family.”

In another indication of the close link between the Presidents of the U.S. and Turkey, Trump suddenly announced he was approving the Turkish invasion of northern Syria after getting a phone call from Erdogan.

Carl Bernstein, a veteran U.S. journalist, “reported in June that Erdogan has enjoyed a level of telephone access to the U.S. president unrivaled by any other foreign leader. ‘By far the greatest number of Trump’s telephone discussions with an individual head of state was with Erdogan, who sometimes phoned the White House at least twice a week and was put through directly to the president on standing orders from Trump,’” Bernstein wrote.

Can Pashinyan do for Armenia a small fraction of what Erdogan has done for Turkey, rather than wasting time on disputes with the Catholicos and the Armenian Apostolic Church?